CUDDALORE: Two youngsters of Puducherry were arrested Monday on the charge of insulting religious beliefs by allegedly taking photographs, with their legs placed on the idol of Hindu Goddess Amman.
Sivaraj (22) and Venkatesan (21) of Kottaimedu in Puducherry have been lodged in Cuddalore sub-jail after being remanded by a judicial magistrate.
Police said, “As the picture of a man with his leg on the Amman idol went viral on social networking sites, we have received a complaint. Though the two men are from Puducherry, the Amman temple, seen in the picture, is in Chinna Irusampalayam village of Tamil Nadu. So the act happened in Tamil Nadu limit.”
“Village head of Chinna Irusampalayam, Narayanasamy, had lodged a complaint with the Reddychavadi police regarding the controversial picture. Based on that, we have registered complaint on Sunday against the two,” the police added.
Functionaries of Hindu Munnani also accompanied Narayanasamy while filing the police complaint.
Reddychavadi police further said that the duo had told us that they have taken the picture two or three weeks ago as a reaction to pictures insulting Periyar that was circulated on social networking sites then.
“Though they had deleted the picture one after the other, the pictures went viral in Whatsapp and Facebook,” they said.
The two were booked under sections 295(A) and 153(A) of IPC and were arrested.